Stockton police are searching for the suspects in a vicious attack that happened on Friday against two teenaged sisters. […] What was supposed to be a peaceful protest remembering Colby Friday turned into a vicious brawl directed against two sisters, and now, investigators are looking for suspects. “Our understanding is that it involved several out-of-towners whose intent was more than protesting,” said Ron Freitas, the Assistant District Attorney for San Joaquin County. Stockton police say the protestors claimed to be connected with the Black Lives Matter movement and were protesting recent officer-involved shootings against blacks. According to police, the two...

The mayor of Stockton, California, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to criminal charges stemming from a strip poker game he is accused of playing while furnishing beer to minors at a summer camp he hosts for underprivileged children.Anthony Ray Silva, 41, was arraigned in Amador County Superior Court on a felony eavesdropping charge and three misdemeanor counts - contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child endangerment and supplying alcoholic beverages to underage persons. Silva, who is free on $20,000 bond, entered not guilty pleas to all four charges. His next court date was set for Sept. 7. Outside the...

OAKLAND -- A suspect wanted for shooting at an Oakland police sergeant Saturday night as she sat dazed in her patrol SUV after a collision was arrested Thursday morning after a standoff with Stockton police, officials said. The suspect's name was not released by police, who said he made statements that the July 23 shooting may have been inspired by recent anti-police sentiment in areas where there have been police shootings. --SNIP-- "Right now we don't know the why," Holmgren said about a motive. He said that the suspect was possibly inspired by anti-police sentiments, but didn't elaborate.

Terrified policemen pushed each other in a desperate rush to flee the home of a topless machete thug who told them: “I’ll take your ****ing heads off.” The two officers were confronted by bare-chested Daniel Meir, who told them to get out of his bedroom ... “They ran down the stairs, having to push each other to make a quicker exit. “They retreated to a vehicle where they locked their doors and waited for assistance to come.”

A study newly released by the California-based law offices of Graham Donath lists Vallejo as the fourth most dangerous city in the state. The list was determined after comparing a number of factors, including 2014 crime rates, investment in police presence, community risk factors and geopolitical issues. Coming in ahead of Vallejo was Modesto, which was ranked third most dangerous. Stockton took second place and San Bernadino took the uncoveted honors of first place. Oakland was ranked the sixth most dangerous city in the study despite having the largest amount of violent crimes. For every 100,000 residents, 1685 violent crimes...

A high-ranking California police lieutenant has been placed on leave after he sent a newspaper a letter condemning the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide. He signed the letter with his rank and employer — and the newspaper editor says that's how he wanted it to appear in print.

STOCKTON — Several bullets struck an unmarked police car Friday night when officers came under heavy gunfire while patrolling a south Stockton neighborhood, authorities said. The gunshots sparked an intense manhunt that resulted in the arrest of one man and three teens, police said. According to authorities, 22-year-old Lawaun Marshaun McDonald, two 15-year-old boys and a 16-year-old boy were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes.

First in Detroit, then in Stockton, Calif., and now in New Jersey, judges and other top officials are challenging the widespread belief that public pensions are untouchable. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey delivered the latest blow on Tuesday, when he proposed to freeze that state’s public pension plans and move workers into new ones intended not to overwhelm future budgets or impose open-ended demands on taxpayers. The first crack came in Detroit, where a judge ruled that public pensions could, in fact, be reduced, at least in bankruptcy. Then, just a few weeks ago, an opinion by the bankruptcy...

This year, judges in California and Michigan approved the exit plans of two of the largest municipal bankruptcy filings in the country’s history. In California, Stockton upheld its obligations to the state’s pension system behemoth, Calpers, while paying its other creditors as little as pennies on the dollar. Detroit, meanwhile, was able to restructure its obligations to all of its creditors, including city pensioners. While the exit plans differed, both judges ruled similarly: public pension obligations could be shortchanged like any other debt. Stockton and Detroit aren't alone. Cities and states across America are facing catastrophic budget shortfalls. After decades...

In a potentially groundbreaking decision, a federal bankruptcy judge today struck down the sanctity of government pensions in California, saying the city of Stockton has the right to sever its contract with CalPERS. The verbal ruling from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein, two years after Stockton filed for bankruptcy, was the decision CalPERS longed to avoid.

STOCKTON, Calif. — Prosecutors in Northern California said Thursday that they have obtained an arrest warrant for a tuberculosis patient who has refused treatment and may be contagious, putting those around him at risk. Eduardo Rosas Cruz, a 25-year-old transient, went to the San Joaquin General Hospital’s emergency room in March, complaining of a severe cough. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, medical staff told him to stay in a Stockton motel room, where a health worker would deliver his medication and watch him take it. But officials say he took off. County health officials asked prosecutors to seek the warrant, in part,...

The suspects in Wednesday's deadly bank heist, police chase and gunfight in Stockton, California, were known gang affiliates with deep criminal pasts and no qualms with taking human life amid their "reckless and chaotic" crimes, police said Thursday. Stockton police detailed the bloody hour-long melee that followed the armed bank robbery — an attack that left dead two suspected robbers and a mother of two whom they took hostage and used as a human shield. The violence left police cars riddled with bullet holes and an entire community reeling. “In my over two decades of law enforcement, I've never seen...

Three armed men led police on a high-speed chase through at least three cities Wednesday, firing shots into cars and houses along the way, and throwing hostages from a speeding SUV after a bank robbery that led to the deaths of one hostage and two of the robbers, officers said.

The other suspect then started grabbing money from the cash register. As the suspects were leaving the business, a round was fired into the display cabinet. Near the door, police say that the suspect tried to fire off another round into the ceiling, only to have the gun fall apart. Parts and live rounds from the gun fell to the floor, and the suspects ran from the store. Police say the two ran off in an unknown direction.

In the industrial midwest, the city government of Detroit went into bankruptcy in July. Out in California, the city governments of Stockton and San Bernardino entered bankruptcy proceedings in 2012. But the Detroit and California bankruptcies, like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, are not alike. They suffer from quite different ailments. You can see the difference by comparing their populations in the 1950 and 2010 censuses. In 1950, Detroit – then the nation’s fifth-largest city – had 1,849,568 people. In 2010, it had 713,777. Stockton and San Bernardino were not much more than small towns in 1950, with 70,853 and 63,058, respectively....

Detroit’s bankruptcy and the problems facing its pension funds offer two important lessons to other communities. One is that state and local governments need to do a much better job managing retirement funds. The other is that they should not pre-emptively reduce hard-earned benefits at the first sign of trouble. Several state and local pension systems around the country are under serious stress. Not surprisingly the hardest hit retirement funds are in places devastated by global economic forces like Detroit, as well as inland cities in California like Stockton, which was battered by the real estate collapse and has also...

Though most Americans go through their day thinking everything is now returning to normal, the fact of the matter is the situation is anything but stable. With crime rates skyrocketing, home prices dropping to under $500 for a house, and the local government out of solutions, the city of Detroit is the latest to join the likes of Stockton, California, having just defaulted on its loans from creditors. Despite promises to the contrary, it should come as no surprise that the city is unable to meet its obligations. And it won’t be the last. City and state governments all over...

Calif. teacher fired for setting up porn sites on work laptop Heidi Kaeslin, 37, was let go from Lincoln High School in Stockton last year for setting up sleazy websites, including mysluttyteacher.com. A California high school teacher has been fired for setting up porn sites — including one called mysluttyteacher.com — on her work laptop. Heidi Kaeslin, 37, was dismissed from Lincoln High School in Stockton last year after her involvement in the seedy project came to light. This week, a panel from the state Office of Administrative Hearings confirmed the ruling — saying files found on the PC were...

Police search for man caught looking into child's room STOCKTON, Calif. (KCRA) —Police in Stockton are trying to identify a man caught on a home-surveillance camera peeking into the window of a child's bedroom early Friday morning. Related. Stockton Officer Joe Silva said a resident heard a noise outside the home, and then spotted the man as he took off on a mountain bike. Police later reviewed home-surveillance video that captured black-and-white images of the man peering into a window of the house for nearly two minutes. At times, the man crawls around on his hands and knees to find...

After a federal judge ruled last week that the city of Stockton can reduce its debt through bankruptcy, observers began to frame the battle as one of municipal bondholders against public employees. But it's hard to shed tears for either of them. During the boom years, Stockton promised its future public-sector retirees free lifetime medical coverage. It also adopted rules allowing workers to spike their pensions by letting them include overtime and other payments from their final work year to calculate retirement pay. Stockton also issued far too many bonds. From 2003 to 2009, on an annual budget of just...

It has been said that an actuary is someone who really wanted to be an accountant but didn't have the personality for it. See who's laughing now. Things are starting to get very interesting, actuarially-speaking. Federal bankruptcy judge Christopher Klein ruled on April 1 that Stockton, Calif., can file for bankruptcy via Chapter 9 (Chapter 11's ugly cousin). The ruling may start the actuarial dominoes falling across the country, because Stockton's predicament stems from financial assumptions that are hardly restricted to one improvident California municipality. Stockton may expose the little-known but biggest lie in global finance: pension funds' expected rate...

This week, while economists should have been closely considering the implications of the actual bankruptcy of Stockton, California, they instead heaped scorn on the perceived ideological bankruptcy of David Stockman. In other words, Stockman trumped Stockton. Ronald Reagan's former Budget Director contributed "Sundown in America" a multi-page opinion piece to the Sunday New York Times which loudly and eloquently described the illusions of our current economic system. While I don't agree with everything Stockman believes, I think he is showing great wisdom and courage in making dire predictions and calling for extreme changes in our policy and politics. What was...

In Stockton, Calif., which has just entered into Chapter 9 bankruptcy, 41 percent of the people do not speak English at home and 21 percent cannot speak it very well, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Data that the Census Bureau developed on what it calls the “social characteristics” of Stockton during the five-year period from 2007 to 2011, indicate that this city, located eighty miles east of San Francisco in California’s San Joaquin Valley, had a population of 289,926. Of those 289,926 people, 76,869 (or about 27 percent) were foreign born, according to the Census Bureau. Of these foreign-born,...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — On its first official day in bankruptcy, the city of Stockton now must grapple with the hard part of reorganizing its financial affairs — how to share the financial burden equitably among creditors while meeting its massive state pension obligations. At the conclusion of a three-day trial, a judge on Monday formally granted the city Chapter 9 protection, over the objections of creditors who questioned whether it was fair for the city to fully meet its obligations to the state pension system while other debt holders go partly paid. The issue — whether federal bankruptcy law...

In late June, Stockton became the nation's largest city to fail financially. At that time, all eyes were on the port city of 300,000 as experts warned the action could set off a string of similar filings among cash-strapped municipalities. Since then, a half-dozen cities have filed for Chapter 9 protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, including the city of San Bernardino.

It is not surprising that they quickly found the source of their pain, the bond holders; those money loving, rich old white guys who know nothing but greed. It is their fault that huge lifelong pensions and free healthcare for life, regardless of how long you worked for the city has not turned Stockton into the utopia it should have been. It is amazing how greedy some people are, they simply don’t care about their fellow man. In a case that will most likely go to the US Supreme Court, the municipal bondholders will be pitted against the California Public...

<p>A few years ago, it was fashionable to compare California, Illinois, or whatever U.S. state was struggling financially to the troubled island nation of Greece. Now, with Stockton, California the largest U.S. municipality to enter bankruptcy, it may be tempting to make another Mediterranean comparison - this time to the troubled island nation of Cyprus.</p>

A mere nine months after we first discussed the inevitability of Stockton, CA.'s bankruptcy, a judge has ordered today that the city will now become the most populous in the US to be declared bankrupt. *STOCKTON CREDITORS DIDN'T NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH, JUDGE SAYS Creditors are pushing to get the city out of bankruptcy but the judge states that "by any measure" the city was insolvent. So, in summary, yeah, it was broke years ago, it still is broke - despite the best efforts by the Central Planning Reserve to reflate the same housing bubble that was the primary reason...

Forbes put Detroit Mayor Dave Bing on its cover in 2011 for a story with the optimistic headline: “City of Hope.” The premise was that the city had hit rock bottom and was poised for a turnaround. “Right now, it’s all about survival,” Bing told Forbes. Two years later, Detroit’s problems continue to multiply, sadly. It is still dealing with high levels of violent crime and unemployment. Home prices, already at historic lows, plummeted a further 35% during the past three years to a median of $40,000 as net migration out of the city continued. The latest blow was Tuesday’s...

STOCKTON (CBS13) – A Stockton man who lived with his girlfriend’s badly decomposed body in a bathtub for several months was convicted of her murder on Wednesday. Devon Omar Epps, 37, was arrested in December 2011 after the apartment manager went to evict him and discovered the body of Veronica Jones in the bathtub of the unit on E. Channel Street. The jury found Epps guilty of all charges: premeditated murder, use of weapon other than a firearm, rape, murder by torture and corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant. Epps will be back in the San Joaquin County courtroom...

In some towns, visitors are warned to keep an eye on their stuff, or to watch out late at night. In the Californian city of Stockton, the anxiety is more precise – and it kicks in early. "Take care downtown after 5pm," one local person told me. "Don't hang out too long." A few hours later, I saw what she meant. Almost as soon as the offices shut, the city centre empties. Then the sun goes down and a different cast takes to the streets: the homeless, the drug dealers, and clusters of young men patrolling up and down on...

Atwater, a city of roughly 28,000 in California's Central Valley, may declare a fiscal emergency as soon as next week, but it is trying to avoid becoming the fourth California city to file for municipal bankruptcy this year... Since late June, three Golden State cities-Stockton, San Bernardino and Mammoth Lakes-have filed for bankruptcy protection... may have to declare a fiscal emergency" on Oct. 3.

Going to work for the government has always come with an ironclad promise: Your pension benefits will be there when you retire. It's a level of security not found in the private sector, and it's a big reason that government jobs are so prized in Sacramento. Now, however, the city of Stockton's bankruptcy case and the financial problems of other cities are testing whether that promise can be broken. Legal battles over this question loom even though the Legislature just approved an overhaul of public retirement plans throughout California. Lawmakers trimmed billions in pension benefits, but mainly at the expense...

At a California racetrack the souped-up cars that have been revving their way around the circuit stop and fall silent. Their roar is replaced by a deeply soulful rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner as a gigantic American flag is unfurled across the course as part of 4 July celebrations. The race commentator, Wild Wayne, gives a patriotic pep talk emphasising that Independence Day means more than an opportunity to eat hot dogs and sink a few Buds. ... There have been a whole host of books about American decline. There is also a more general malaise, a worry that America,...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The San Bernardino City Council decided to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, making it the second largest city in the nation to ever file for bankruptcy. San Bernardino faces a $46 million budget shortfall and may not be able to pay all its employees over the next three months. Meanwhile, residents don't know what to expect. Two weeks ago Stockton, in Northern California, became the largest city in the country to ever file for bankruptcy. And the tiny town of Mammoth Lakes voted for bankruptcy last week. The city of Los Angeles has serious...

The City of Stockton, the now-infamous port city located in Northern California, is declaring bankruptcy. It is the largest U.S. City to take the drastic step of declaring bankruptcy. Stockton is facing a $26 million budget deficit, it has stopped making bond payments, and employee pay, and health and insurance benefits, have been cut significantly. Is Los Angeles next? There is no doubt that it is in bad shape financially -- and I mean really bad shape. But for a number of reasons I do not think Los Angeles will go the way of Stockton. Its leaders, hopefully, still have...

After desperately trying everything from huge budget cuts to secret negotiations with creditors, the Stockton City Council finally ran out of options Tuesday night and voted to file for bankruptcy. The 6-1 vote was to authorize a day-to-day operating budget, called a pendency plan, that will go into effect when city officials file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Sacramento. That filing is expected Wednesday. Stockton, a river port with 292,000 residents, will become the biggest city in U.S. history to vote itself into bankruptcy. The previous largest bankrupt city was Vallejo, which filed in 2008 and...

With the city of Stockton moving to become the nation's largest city to seek protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, Tuesday night's City Council meeting was quiet, with an evident sadness on faces in the packed chambers. The working-class port city -- from where many of California's agricultural exports set sail -- lived largely on credit during economic boom times. The city borrowed millions of dollars for ambitious, eye-catching projects in the mid-2000s. Up went a sports arena, hotel and promenade. The city booked a Neil Diamond concert as a kickoff to better times. Houses in sprawling tracts sold quickly...

Stockton, California is filing for the largest bankruptcy of any U.S. city in history due to the decline in the once hot housing market and an intake of debt during its boom years. The city has cut more than $90 million in spending over the past few years, specifically in its police department. The city has cut over one quarter of its police jobs, which has led to a "surge in murders," and has created an "emboldened criminal element" in the city. According to police spokesman Joe Silva, the city has had 87 murders since the start of 2011, 29...

STOCKTON - It can withstand AK-47 rounds from point-blank range. Fifty-caliber bullets will not penetrate its hull or puncture its run-flat tires. Ballistic glass more than an inch thick protects the occupants as they serve high-risk search warrants or handle hostage situations. It is a modified Ford F-550 truck known as the Lenco BearCat G3, and it is the newest addition to the Stockton Police Department's motor pool. Essentially paid for by selling items taken from drug dealers the past several years, the BearCat was formally introduced to the community Wednesday morning during a Stockton SWAT team training session. Team...

Despite objections from the mayors of California's ten largest cities, the Assembly last week approved Assembly Bill 1692 by Fremont Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski. The bill will make it harder for cities to seek bankruptcy protection. It reneges on a carefully crafted compromise measure approved just six months ago that requires financially beleaguered cities to enter into good-faith negotiations with their creditors—including most significantly, public employee unions—before filing for bankruptcy protection. Stockton was in the midst of that mediation when the bill to undo it began moving in the Legislature. Just how bad are things in Stockton? Well how's this for...

Add Stockton, California (population 292,000) to the list of cities bankrupted because of bad management and over-generous public union wages and benefits. Please consider New Stockton City Hall building seized by Wells Fargo; city preps bankruptcy contingency plan: "The Stockton City Council announced Wednesday that they will look at bankruptcy contingency plans after Wells Fargo seized the new city hall building. The city paid $35 million to buy the 8-story building, but was not able to move in because of its money problems, and recently stopped making debt payments all together. This is the fourth building that was repossessed by...

STOCKTON - An 18-year-old Stockton man was convicted Tuesday of raping an 87-year-old woman while he also burglarized her cottage home at O'Connor Woods retirement community Oct. 9, 2010. Kunta Shaquille Ali Rigmaden will be sentenced to 15 years to life at a hearing to be held within the next 28 days. A San Joaquin County Superior Court jury found him guilty of rape and multiple counts of burglary. The jury could not come to a consensus on an additional count of sodomy, voting 11-1 in favor of conviction on that count after 21/2 days of deliberations. Della Maggiore...

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA, May 24, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A California-based bishop is concerned that the lawsuits to overturn the HHS mandate filed by the leading dioceses and institutions of his Church may be used to underscore political criticism of the Obama administration. Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton told America magazine that, while the bishops he knows in California “are strong supporters” of these religious liberty lawsuits, “I think there are different groups that are trying to co-opt this and make it into political issue.” Forces “very far to the Right” may be tempted to make the legal challenge a part of...

It's easy – justifiably so – to beat up on Stockton for spending itself into a fiscal hole so deep that bankruptcy may be its only course. City officials borrowed and spent heavily on a baseball park, a sports arena, a marina and other facilities in hopes of resurrecting a woebegone downtown, and simultaneously boosted their employees' salaries and fringe benefits. At the time, Stockton was seeing a surge of sales and property taxes from a housing boom and the city's politicians and administrators wagered, in effect, that it would go on forever. When the bubble burst, it was left...

So Stockton has suspended payments to its bondholders and is seeking to renegotiate its debts in hopes of averting a formal bankruptcy. Sound familiar? It's what Greece, which also is head-over-heels in debt, is doing. The parallels are uncanny. Stockton and Greece spent heavily to keep money flowing to those with political pull, and borrowed heavily, all in the name of societal improvement. Stockton wanted to improve its poor municipal image – crime-ridden and corrupt. So it borrowed to build a new sports arena, a baseball park, a hotel and a marina – the latter so over the top that...

Black-and-white photos of Stockton in its heyday - of handsome buildings and bustling streets - flash on the flat-screen television at Henry's Miracle Mile Hair Styling in the city's historic shopping district. Customers also get a sobering dose of color images showing empty, boarded up stores and restaurants that left downtown long ago. Stockton is on the verge of becoming the largest city in the United States to declare bankruptcy, and on a recent weekday the talk inside the old school barber shop centered on the financial havoc at City Hall that threatens the often derided city of nearly 300,000...

Bondholders of Stockton, California debt are about to be punished as City Manager Takes Steps Toward Bankruptcy. Stockton, California, may take the first steps toward becoming the most populous U.S. city to file for bankruptcy next week because of burdensome employee costs, excessive debt and bookkeeping errors that misrepresented accounts, city officials said today. The Stockton City Council will meet Feb. 28 to consider a type of mediation that allows creditors to participate, the first move toward a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing under a new state law. The council will also weigh suspending some payments on long-term debt of about...

Wednesday Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) opened a hearing to examine the emerging threat to the military from homegrown terrorists within the U.S. and named the armed services as the "most sought-after" target for radical Islamist extremist groups. Rep. Dan Lungren (R.-Calif.) asked Paul Stockton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, whether "we are at war with violent Islamist extremism."